Page 38 of Bad Decisions

Over the years, I’ve become a hollow man, no longer allowing myself to feel. I shut down my emotions only a few years into my deployment so the damage and pain war inflicts on the human body wouldn’t rip me apart when I was confronted by it. Now, with the burning pain in my chest, I wish I could go back to being a hollow man.

Jewel makes me feel more alive than I have in years, even when she’s angry with me. Even when it hurts like hell to watch her walk away with only the fragile promise of needing time to cling to.

More than anything, it shreds my control to know she’s hurting and that I can’t hold her or comfort her as I did in the past. She’s not okay, and that means I’m not. I watch her walk briskly past the café window, looking down at her feet.

Throwing a bundle of notes on the table, I snatch up the crutch and limp to the door. My fucking useless leg might not let me follow her far, but I can at least watch to see she’s okay. I stumble through the door onto the sidewalk just in time to see her enter the clinic.

The thump of my racing heart is already slowing to a steadier beat. But I can’t leave. Not yet, with all my protective instincts on high alert.

Chapter twenty-one

Jewel

Tears cloud my vision as I rush back to the clinic. It’s closed now, but I have my own key, and it’s a lot closer than my apartment. My heart is cracking open, too full to hold all the emotion. I need to be alone before the first tears fall.

With a thud, I crash through the door into my room, barely making it to the chair at my desk before collapsing into it. Rivers of tears run down my cheeks, separating into multiple tracks before dripping off my chin and into my hands. Scrunching up a bunch of tissues from the box on my desk, I dab furiously to stem the flow.

This hurts far worse than when we said goodbye in Southampton, or when I finally deleted his name from my contacts. But back then, I didn’t fear for his safety like I do now. Each breath is pulled from my chest as if it were my last, and panic takes hold of my lungs and squeezes.

The thought that Will could just be gone as quickly as my father had been taken from me never even entered my head. Why would it? He’s physically fit and strong, in the prime of his life. And normally, that would be enough for most men. But not Will, who walks toward danger like regular folk walk to the shops.

“Jewel?”

“Aaahhh.” I jump up, banging my knee on the table. “Fuck.”

“Are you all right?” Cara asks, rushing to my side as I double over and flop back into the chair. My hand, filled with sodden tissue, goes to my chest.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I stutter, rubbing my knee while still trying to manage the remnants of my ugly crying jag.

“Sorry. But I thought you left to meet Will.” She spins my chair with me in it to face her. Her brow creases with concern. “What happened?”

“I did meet him. And we talked.” My breath hitches. The tears may have dried, but my fragile emotions are still hovering on the surface like a freshly healed wound that, with the lightest bump, would bleed freely again. Will could leave a permanent scar on my heart.

“Will told me he wanted to be with me, and I told him I needed time and left.”

Cara’s expression urges me to go on without her having to say a word. That’s the kind of friend she is, giving me the space to unload at my own pace.

“He didn’t call because he and his team were stuck somewhere with no way of communicating.”

Guilt at not having waited long enough for him sits like a rock in the pit of my stomach. But I can’t unpack that right now when I’m sinking into a chasm of despair with the knowledge that his work is super dangerous.

“He was shot. And s-stabbed.” My thoughts become words that tumble out of my mouth in no logical sequence, not even formed into sentences. But I can’t stop the flow.

If Cara’s mouth wasn’t wide open, she’d probably have questions that I’ve got no answers to. Or worse, she’d be asking me why I ran away.

“Hey, take a breath,” she says, and her calm tone goes a long way to soothe the worst of my fever-pitched distress.

The deep breath shuddering in and out of my body is another step toward me regaining my composure.

“Good. Now let’s start from the beginning.” She pulls the small stool beside my desk closer and sits. “Go on.”

I take her through my conversation with Will, and for once, she doesn’t mention my habit of self-sabotaging every relationship. It probably wouldn’t even be something she hasn’t said before anyway, because this is what I do.

A pattern of behavior that only Will has managed to break in the past. The only man who supported me while showing me I had the strength to move beyond the lowest point in my life. Who gave me the fortitude to handle the practicalities of packing up my family home. And then, in his arms, chased away the loneliness that threatened to swamp me with the overwhelming sadness of loss.

At some point during my retelling, the tears dry, and I sit up taller in my seat.

Cara’s brow furrows. “What happens now? He’s giving you time, but what do you plan on doing with that?”